My opinion is that this price drop is due to the inefficiency of exchanges to serve the demand for a longer time span, particularly MtGox.

I have seen people wanting to invest in EUR, and their bank transfers being delayed for a week now because the exchange relies on a single person. Liberty Reserve was down a few days. If you have a look at the marketplace forum and #bitcoin-otc channel, you will see many people explicitely buying MtGoxUSD which seems to confirm my statement.

I don’t think the MtGox price reflects the "true" market price at all because it’s so difficult to get money in.

We are seeing much media attention at the moment by the way, being on Econtalk and various bigger tech sites.

My opinion is that this price drop is due to the inefficiency of exchanges to serve the demand for a longer time span, particularly MtGox.

I have seen people wanting to invest in EUR, and their bank transfers being delayed for a week now because the exchange relies on a single person. Liberty Reserve was down a few days. If you have a look at the marketplace forum and #bitcoin-otc channel, you will see many people explicitely buying MtGoxUSD which seems to confirm my statement.

I don’t think the MtGox price reflects the "true" market price at all because it’s so difficult to get money in.

This is the issue with relying upon a marketplace that represents a minority of the trade in question, but as far as I know, the MtGox spot price is the best metric of this kind that we have. Getting funds into and out of such markets have always been a limiting factor.

"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

My opinion is that this price drop is due to the inefficiency of exchanges to serve the demand for a longer time span, particularly MtGox.

I have seen people wanting to invest in EUR, and their bank transfers being delayed for a week now because the exchange relies on a single person. Liberty Reserve was down a few days. If you have a look at the marketplace forum and #bitcoin-otc channel, you will see many people explicitely buying MtGoxUSD which seems to confirm my statement.

I don’t think the MtGox price reflects the "true" market price at all because it’s so difficult to get money in.

This is the issue with relying upon a marketplace that represents a minority of the trade in question, but as far as I know, the MtGox spot price is the best metric of this kind that we have. Getting funds into and out of such markets have always been a limiting factor.

Agree with you.

And it is even more than that:The current rate of mining creates 7,000-10,000 bitcoins per day, 50,000 - 70,000 per week, 200,000 - 280,000 per month. This creates a lot of supply which, if not absorbed by buyers of bitcoins results in a lot of technical overhead pressure on BTC/fiat currencies.

What I’m saying is that this price drop is no surprise and had to happen with this rate of inflation and technical problems on the demand side.

Possible obvious solutions:

1. More efficient exchanges2. More support from shops, leading to increasing viability of price arbitrage in case of a BTC/USD drop3. Reduction of existing supply by Bitcoin investment opportunities (ie upcoming stock market)

And it is even more than that:The current rate of mining creates 7,000-10,000 bitcoins per day, 50,000 - 70,000 per week, 200,000 - 280,000 per month. This creates a lot of supply which, if not absorbed by buyers of bitcoins results in a lot of technical overhead pressure on BTC/fiat currencies.

On the other hand, for a completely decentralized "fiat" currency, attracting 160K~224K inflow per month -- like in the past few months -- is quite remarkable.

There are no rich people competing to hoard BTC, which is a healthy thing at this stage. The trading volume shows this is still a very thin market but that can change on a dime any time.

And it is even more than that:The current rate of mining creates 7,000-10,000 bitcoins per day, 50,000 - 70,000 per week, 200,000 - 280,000 per month. This creates a lot of supply which, if not absorbed by buyers of bitcoins results in a lot of technical overhead pressure on BTC/fiat currencies.

On the other hand, for a completely decentralized "fiat" currency, attracting 160K~224K inflow per month -- like in the past few months -- is quite remarkable.

There are no rich people competing to hoard BTC, which is a healthy thing at this stage. The trading volume shows this is still a very thin market but that can change on a dime any time.

Yeah, it's been surprising to watch it all unfold. It never really was destined to last. Still, I would contest the assumption that there are no wealthy players involved in Bitcoin. All that we can really say is that no wealthy players have invested excessively in Bitcoin.

"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

What I’m saying is that this price drop is no surprise and had to happen with this rate of inflation and technical problems on the demand side.

Possible obvious solutions:

Solutions require a problem first. Why is lower BTC/$ price a problem for Bitcoin? Why is any value a problem? All the discussion sounds like talk on CNBC where permanent bull market and ridiculous stock prices are presented as a good thing.

No problem in the short term. In the long term, trust would drop and that is the only thing that gives Bitcoin value.

Also, it can be a problem regarding the network’s hashrate and therefore overall security; if the price drops too low, mining incentive will certainly be reduced. A weak network isn’t exactly easy to trust, either.

No problem in the short term. In the long term, trust would drop and that is the only thing that gives Bitcoin value.

Well, if BTC never got up to 1$, there would be no problem with 0.50$ per BTC. Bubbles are not good for the trust. Therefore, I claim rises in BTC/$ prices are worse than no rises.

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Also, it can be a problem regarding the network’s hashrate and therefore overall security; if the price drops too low, mining incentive will certainly be reduced. A weak network isn’t exactly easy to trust, either.

True but in my opinion, for long term Bitcoin health, the Bitcoin economy must rise faster than the BTC/$ prices and not the other way round. And the Bitcoin economy (the amount of goods and services exchanged via BTC) does not seem to rise fast enough to justify the "bull market" this year.

And the Bitcoin economy (the amount of goods and services exchanged via BTC) does not seem to rise fast enough to justify the "bull market" this year.

That you can see, that is. I quetly wonder how much of the BTC exchange price is black or grey markets like Silk Road. Certainly such markets exist, even if we here couldn't access them, and even a small percentage of those who could access them using Bitcoin as their medium of exchange could explain the large run up over the past 8 months.

"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

Solutions require a problem first. Why is lower BTC/$ price a problem for Bitcoin? Why is any value a problem? All the discussion sounds like talk on CNBC where permanent bull market and ridiculous stock prices are presented as a good thing.

I strongly agree here.

People hoarded BTC and wanted to get rich fast selling them again, driving value far beyond anything the market can currently sustain. That was (and still is, though to a lesser extent) the driving force of BTC price. Remember that those people might not even intend to stay with BTC! Many just want to ride a bubble, burst it, trade back into USD, EUR or whatever and run off. That is not necessarily a support for BitCoin.

So they played a round of their game on top of the actual market foundation. Why do people care so much? Okay, everybody is sitting on some BTC, I guess, but this was well within expectations. Winning or loosing just happens, no reason to cry about it. Let some of them fall on their noses, maybe it'll cure some of the craziness from the market.

I've been given a good show for the value I lost, I have no regrets. And, well, the coins I already have lost value, but I might be able to buy some more cheaper. And who knows what the future brings? I came for the party, I'm getting one.

┐(￣ー￣)┌

PS: for all I know, the small demand is not caused by delayed transfers. They only make a small fraction of mtgox demand, and MagicalTux would probably manually process large transfers if he is nagged long enough.

Yeah. Maybe they are not sufficiently informed about the possibility of the long term income.

Do you mean they should not sell, but stay sitting on the coins? If so, is that really how you want it, a larger bubble over longer time? That's the only change you get if they simply wait longer.

We need people who spend in BTC. People who trade back to classical currencies play a zero-sum game, or worse. The only advantage they give to the system is hopefully backing the currency until more trades within the BitCoin users happen. Now if people would intend to spend the money as BTC, even if a little later, we face a healthy flow of BTC as soon as they do. This brings a kind of small inflation that encourages BTC traders. This is good inflation, it brings trade volume within the network. A great outcome compared to people just selling back, which could starve trade volume on all ends, and we might face again what we saw yesterday.

BitCoin requires new thinking. Effects like that are seldom seen on big markets, where people can't just stop spending. We're facing a situation that may be unique -- new currencies have developed in the past, but none did so being far spread across the globe, being a fragmented market from the start.